


Anything & Everything

by countrygirlsfun



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bisexual Character, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, hockey injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9828899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countrygirlsfun/pseuds/countrygirlsfun
Summary: Will’s soulmate wasn’t something he spent a lot of time worrying about before.Before he even graduated high school, Nursey stopped actively thinking about his mark and who his soulmate would be.What a pair they make.





	

Will’s soulmate wasn’t something he spent a lot of time worrying about before. In the grand scheme of his life, wondering who the person he is meant to be with hasn’t been the most pressing issue.

Making sure his parents didn’t work themselves to an early grave was essential. Protecting his younger siblings from the responsibility he bore since he was old enough to understand was imperative. Keeping his older sister in school and out of their one-horse town has been critical.

Of course, he’s in a place now where he doesn’t worry about his soulmate, but when he was waiting for his marks to show up it was a different story.

Soulmarks come in at different times for everyone. They can show up basically at any time surrounding puberty. Before, during, after.

But the same is mostly true for everyone. Soulmarks appear gradually, often starting with an outline or a base that grows and expands in detail the closer you get to meeting your soulmate.

Some people’s marks are incredibly simple. Those people who wind up being destined to be with their childhood best friends often have very simplistic shared marks. Sometimes marks are huge and intricate, spanning inches of skin to represent the span of years it took for them to meet.

With an older sister and younger ones behind him, Will knew they might beat him to it, that their marks would appear before his did. He did not however anticipate that he’d have to wait until he was 16 almost 17 to even find where on his body they were appearing.

He and his siblings are so fair-skinned Will had been certain he’d notice his marks as soon as they showed up. But instead of a clear outline of something or the beginning of a phrase, Will was cursed with _dots_.

Dots that are almost identical to his freckles.

And since he has freckles all over his body, it took a while to notice their presence.

It took him so long to notice the dots that his soulmark became the second biggest discovery about himself in the course of his life.

The first was when he discovered he was bisexual. It wasn’t some big crisis and he didn’t come out right away or anything but he figured it out while he was dating Johana Burke. Johana was as strong as she was beautiful. And that’s the thing that always draws Will in with girls. How they can be so strong and soft at the same time. Of course, at 15 girls smell a lot better than boys do.

But eventually it hit him one day at lunch listening to Johana’s friends discuss the other boys in their class. It hit Will how much he could relate to their thoughts.

Jonathan Shaffer was attractive to anyone who had eyes and a heartbeat. With his perfectly styled brown hair and his dark eyes and broad shoulders it was inevitable that Will developed a crush. It just took a too-honest conversation with his sister Katie to realize that his thoughts were not normal for completely heterosexual dudes.

But when she didn’t make a big deal out of it, _he_ didn’t in response. Like if he had one person on his side in the world he was okay with his own preferences. All that aside…he still kept it just between him and his sister. It wasn’t like he wanted to _act_ on it. Not with any of the guys in their tiny town in Maine.

The second half of senior year was full of hockey finals, college tours and putting in extra hours at the gas station to save up some money for his parents for when he’s gone. He goes to three different school that have offered him a scholarship. Two for hockey and one for both hockey and academics. The fact that he managed to get a full ride scholarship to Samwell University was a shock but one he really wanted to take advantage of. He just wasn’t sure he was going to fit in there.

It was the last of his three campus tours and he was really worried that it wouldn’t live up to the experiences he’d had at the state schools. They had cheaper tuition and a less rigorous academic program but he’d felt like he fit in with the student body. Samwell was a private school in an Ivy league for sports and academics.

But he met the hockey team and went on the tour and met with a couple professors in the programs he’d been considering. It was still very much all up in the air when he went to bed that night. But when he woke up the next morning, his thigh itching like crazy, he knew where he had to go.

Where before there had only been a vague collection of tiny black dots mixed in with his freckles, now they were darker, bolder and some had even gotten bigger than others.

It was much clearer now that he had a mark and not just discolored freckles.  

He’d taken a moment to wonder if all red-heads were cursed with constellation soulmarks before he got up to shower.

Sitting his parents down at the kitchen table later that morning to tell them his decision went off without a hitch. His mom cried and his dad pulled him into a hug so tight it robbed him of breath for a moment. But Will understood. He was going to leave their tiny town and make something of himself. His hard work in high school had officially paid off and their son was going to a good college completely on scholarship.

He was one less mouth to feed and one less child to support but Will knew it wasn’t a mean-spirited relief. He knew how hard his parents worked and how much they went without so the little ones could have things.

But Katie had smirked and pulled him aside afterwards, once his parents were far out of earshot.

“So you made this decision completely of your own volition, huh? It has nothing to do with the One in Four thing?” she’d asked all confident and smug like she’d figured him out.

Will had been confused because he didn’t know what she was talking about. Instead of asking though, he dropped his pants.

“Will, what are you-“ she cried out shielding her eyes with her hands as if he’d pulled his briefs down too.

“This is why I’m going to Samwell,” he admitted quietly and tugged her hand away from her face. “Among other things,” he tacked on at the end because honestly he had really enjoyed Samwell’s campus and even the…eccentric upperclassmen on the hockey team.

She’d taken him a bit more seriously once she’d seen the stark mark on his thigh, now completely discernable and probably a constellation Will would have to figure out at some point.

“Oh,” she’d breathed out and Will had smiled, feeling hopeful at long last about college instead of terrified as he pulled his pants back in place.

“Besides,” he teased lightly, “this way there’s more money for your tuition so you don’t have to drop out.”

“But I don’t want to go back,” she whined and Will wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she hid her face in his chest.

“Mini-mart, Katie,” he said tonelessly and she shuddered, “it’s either college or the Mini-Mart. You’re smart and determined and no matter what you can do it. You know you want to.”

She sniffled a little and Will tightened his arm around her shoulders in a comforting squeeze.

“I just miss home so much. I miss Mom and Molly and Jordy and _you_.”

“I know,” he reassured her, “but this way I’ll be closer to you and you can come visit since you’ll have the car this year. And we’ll have breaks to come home. It won’t be so bad this year. Promise.”

When he’d promised his sister could visit he hadn’t really thought that would mean she would show up for their victory parties. Oh excuse him, epikegsters.

It wouldn’t be half bad except that of course she had to show up when it’s his turn to be on Nursey Patrol. Honestly Nursey still aggravates him but he knows the possible damage Derek could inflict on himself and others when he gets past tipsy. It’s just better for all parties involved that he follow the by-laws and look out for his d-man partner.

But that means keeping Nursey and his sister in close proximity so he can watch over the both of them at the same time.

And that is less than ideal.

“Did he really have a nose ring?” Nursey asks, all loud and disbelieving. His eyes are wide and he looks so shocked that Dex would laugh if he wasn’t sure that if Nursey remembers this tidbit about Dex it’ll be used in jokes against him for the rest of time.

Katie just laughs into her drink as she takes another swig of beer from her solo cup.

“I think his girlfriend talked him into it to be honest which turned out to be her biggest mistake,” Katie explains and Dex groans and hides his face.

“What? Why?” Nursey demands to know, stepping closer to both Will and Katie, making their triangle of conversation that much smaller.

Small mercies.

“Poindexter skin is perfectly suited for piercings,” she says matter-of-factly, “And the gold triangle septum piercing he had in made him the talk of the school.”

She pauses and takes in Nursey’s slack jaw.

“And by talk of the school,” she adds, pointing at Dex with the hand holding her beer, “I mean one of the school’s hotties for the entirety of his senior year.”

Good grief.

Dex frowns into his beer and wishes it was something stronger when Nursey looks up at him in wonderment. He looks like Christmas came early and Dex just knows he’s going to have to endure endless teasing for his previous life choices.

It wouldn’t be so bad, he really did like the piercing and the simple ring Katie had found for him on Etsy. But Nursey did not need any more ammunition against him honestly. Now Dex will never hear the end of it for ‘secretly being a hipster this whole time.’ He just knows Nurse will use this information he’s gleaned for nefarious and annoying teasing purposes.

“Awh, look Derek,” Dex tunes back in to hear his sister coo as her hand comes up to brush his cheek, “Mr. Grumpy Pants is here for the party now. That means we’re free from Will’s babysitting efforts!” she cries and both her and Nursey cheer as Dex grumbles into his beer yet again.

“You two require constant vigilance,” he mumbles and Nursey laughs.

“What a nerd,” he says and Dex is 80% sure he’s not being derisive, “Quoting Harry Potter at a kegster. What a beaut.”

Dex doesn’t stick around to see what teasing could occur following _that_ interaction and goes to find the keg to refill his beer.

He’s going to need it.

*

Samwell turns out to be one of Will’s best decisions. Despite the openness to those people who identify as LGBTQ+ he doesn’t really feel the need to come out. His genuine questions about campus and the One in Four thing get misinterpreted though so Will winds up coming out to Shitty in pure self-defense. A one-on-one lecture from B. Shitty Knight is something Dex would really rather avoid. They’re intense.

But for the most part it doesn’t matter. He has friends, better friends than the ones of convenience from high school and he’s learning things that are actually interesting. Granted he’s still in generals but it’s way better than high school. He gets to see Katie every few weekends and he finally has space away from his younger siblings to really be himself.

If he wants to nap or jack off between classes and practice he _can._

After the tour in the spring that prompted his marks to change Dex had started researching constellations which turned into information on signs rather quickly. It didn’t take long to find out it was the constellation Aquarius on his leg. Of all the marks he could have gotten, a range of dates his soulmate’s birthday likely falls in is one of the more specific ones.

His mom has a key to his dad’s padlock on their biceps.

Their pastor had a compass rose and his wife had an anchor.

Brian, a kid in Will’s class at home, had deer antlers on his back and Dan had the matching skull on his chest.

It’s all so specific to the relationship that they tend to be incredibly vague marks until you know the person your soul is looking for.

He knows other people on the team have marks. Everyone has seen the bird in flight on Shitty’s thigh thanks to his frequent bouts of nakedness. Bitty has a hockey glove on his hipbone that explains a lot of his choice to switch from figure skating to the more aggressive sport. And of course Ransom has a tree on his back that has branches that wrap around his ribs on his left side.

Despite the habits of his best friend, Jack is normally freakishly clothed. Even in the locker room. Nursey’s skin is darker and he has so many other tattoos already that Dex doesn’t know if he could tell the difference between a soulmark and one he had added. Lardo’s has never been spotted by anyone as far as Dex knows and Holster’s is on his ass. They all know it he just hasn’t ever shown anyone.

All in all he likes his mark. Once he got on campus and started meeting people he started noticing dashed lines coming in one dash at a time to connect the dots. Between practice, workouts, class and Haus parties he hasn’t been able to keep track of when they show up to see if there’s a pattern to it. But for once in his life he’s not stressing out about something; from the beginning he’s been confident in the universe dealing with this however it sees fit.

*

Nursey can’t believe he’s gone and done this. He knew leaving Andover and playing hockey at Samwell would open up all kinds of doors in his romantic life but he just wasn’t expecting this. This being the fact that he’s gone and developed the world’s biggest crush on the world’s grumpiest sweetheart.

Of course it had come on gradually. They really did irritate each other during the first semester but as the snow melted and the ground thawed so did their relationship.

It had been a warm-ish day, temperatures rising above freezing enough to make the snow melt into slush on the sidewalks but that hadn’t stopped Dex from going for a run outside. Normally having Dex come panting and red-faced into the Haus kitchen in those short running shorts and tight running tights would be enough of a distraction. But the full kitchen had stopped dead silent when he’d walked in and Nursey felt justified that at least he wasn’t the only one thrown off by William Poindexter looking fine and flushed from the exercise.

“Uh, Dex, I thought you were running,” Bitty said, breaking the silence after a moment of collective staring at Dex, his beauty and the overflowing box he’s carrying.

“I was,” Dex grumbled and stepped forward, putting the box on the table and Nursey’s eyes had been drawn to the way his arms flexed from the motion.

“But then I found a twenty just fluttering in the snow and then I ran past a garage sale.”

The room collectively groaned and Dex ducked his head.

Dex is not allowed into garage sales unattended.

“I know okay but I did my best. I only had 20 bucks this time.”

Bitty sighed, shaking his head fondly and waved a hand at the box.

“So what did you get?”

Dex stepped back up to the box and started digging around before he was passing out things from the box as if Santa bestowing gifts. All with a frown firmly in place, so maybe not so much like Santa. Santa isn’t as cranky as William Poindexter.

“Found this cookbook for ya Bits with, like notes and extras stuffed in the pages and shit,” Dex explained as he handed Bitty a battered looking book. “Oh and this cast iron pan,” he said, nonchalantly pulling out a huge dark pan and Bitty looked at it with glistening eyes.

“Oh my Lord,” he enthused at the size and condition of the pan. “It’s beautiful,” Bitty whispered and a small smile quirked the side of Dex’s mouth. There and gone in a moment.

“I think it should be conditioned but the idiot only wanted $5 for it,” Dex explained and Bitty jerked his eyes away from his newest prized possession.

“$5?!” he demanded, “with the enamel on the outside it’s worth hundreds of dollars!”

“I know,” Dex smirked and Bitty wrapped him in a hug so tight it startled Will a little.

“What else did you manage to find this time?” Bitty asked quickly as he stepped away cradling the pan over to the sink to wash it.

Dex returned to the box and pulled out a battered looking wooden case.

“Lardo,” he said quietly and Lards looked up from the book she’d been reading while folded into one of the kitchen chairs. “Thought you could use these,” he continued as he handed the case over the table to her.

She hesitantly set it on the table, thumbed the clasp open and raised the lid.

She gasped and Dex winced.

Nursey and the rest watched as she pulled out a paint brush and thumbed the bristles looking as amazed as any of them have ever seen her.

“These are amazing,” she breathed and then looked up at Dex, nodded once before closing the lid and walking out of the kitchen.

It was weird but not weird for Lardo.

There had been a couple other small things for Ransom which made Holster pout at being left out. Nursey hadn’t been expecting for Dex to turn to him and pass him the presumably empty box.

“Giving me the trash, Poindexter? What do I look like, the recycling man?”

Dex had rolled his eyes and crossed his arms protectively across his chest.

“Shut it Nurse and just accept your- just look in the box,” he grumbled and Nursey belatedly looked down and saw not one but _three_ vinyl records at the bottom.

One Louis Armstrong, a Miles Davis and a Billie Holiday.

Dex _had_ been listening to Nursey’s rant on classic jazz music.

Nursey cleared his throat as he pulled them out of the box, trying to figure out what to say but Dex had cleared his throat in return until Nursey looked up at him. A short nod was all they exchanged before Dex took the empty box and walked out of the kitchen leaving silence in his wake.

“Does anyone else find him more attractive than ever?” Holster said into the empty air once the door had shut and Nursey had been reluctant to acknowledge that yes.

Yes he did.

And unfortunately, that was only the beginning.

After realizing his feelings were a little more than platonic for his defensive partner, Nursey felt like the universe decided to barrage him with Dex at all times. He’s just minding his own business, trying to write some poetry that doesn’t circle back to cupcake sprinkles or twinkling Christmas lights or sea salt on caramel when someone comes into the kitchen.

He assumes it’s Bitty given the pots and pans that start banging around so he keeps working on his homework. He sits back after a while with a sigh once he finishes one of his assignments. He stops mid-stretch when he sees Dex standing in front of Betsy, not Bitty.

And as usual, Will’s face is turned down in a frown. What’s not normal is the dusting of flour streaked across his cheekbone and his hair tousled from the long fingers running through it. Nursey snaps himself out of it at the sound of Will’s voice.

“Bitty! Since when does the broiler not work in Betsy?” he demands and Nursey takes in the way Will’s sweats hug his thighs and ass really, _really_ nicely.

“I wanted to make supper but the broiler isn’t heating up and my sandwiches are getting soggy,” Dex laments into the phone and Nursey has to struggle to stop ogling his friend before Dex turns around and sees him drooling.

He distracts himself by carefully putting away his homework, tucking things into their proper notebooks and then shoving it all into his backpack. By the time he’s done he has successfully suppressed his libido and Dex is off the phone.

“Troubles?” Nursey asks and Dex grumbles.

“No,” he says firmly, still glaring at the oven. “It’s just- if I had _known_ the broiler element was broken I would have fixed it and avoided this whole thing from happening. Or I would have made something different to eat.”

Nursey gets up as Dex rambles and peeks over his shoulder to see what he’s been making.

“Looks good, bro,” he enthuses because it looks delicious. “Cheesesteak sandwiches?”

“Yeah,” Dex says quietly, suddenly stiff and it takes Nursey a moment to realize how close he’s standing to Will.

He’s practically plastered to his back.

Shit.

He backs off with as much grace as he can manage and goes to the fridge.

“Should I make a salad or something to go with it?” he asks, head stuck inside the fridge looking for the necessary ingredients.

“Sure,” Dex responds sounding a little croaky and Nursey takes a moment to breathe before he starts pulling lettuce and carrots out of the veggie drawer.

If he survived Andover, he can survive having a crush on Dex.

*

Yeah, he’s an idiot. He’s never going to survive his crush on Dex. Spring break had been long and boring and Nursey had come back to campus halfway through the week so he didn’t have to sit in an empty brownstone alone anymore. But everybody else was off doing fun spring break things. And Dex was home, out on the boat for most of the day so they hadn’t even texted for most of break.

Nursey had felt like he was going through withdrawals since being back on campus without Dex there. When Dex came into the locker room for their first practice after break, Derek felt like he could finally breathe again at long last.

Then Dex smiled at him and he lost his breath all over again.

They have an away game the end of that first week after break. Nursey couldn’t help but notice, during all his staring, how tired Dex has been looking since he returned from Maine.

The game goes about as well as they expected it to. Samwell wins 3-1 with the other team getting a lucky shot in at the beginning of the second period. Nursey and Dex had done their part in defending the goal for the rest of the game but there were times where it felt like it didn’t matter. Chow was a monster between the pipes.

Despite the win, it doesn’t seem like the team is going to party back at the hotel. The bus ride back is subdued, content but calm. Derek can’t find it in himself to be all that bothered by it though. Dex is staring moodily out the window and Chowder is listing in his seat towards the isle.

He’s exhausted too but not as much as Chris apparently. Getting off the bus, keeping Chris upright and getting their bags towards the elevators is all Nursey focuses on when they pull up to the main doors to the hotel. Dex slips through the team with his bag over his shoulder, not exactly quickly, his fatigue slowing his steps, but definitely more purposeful than the rest of the guys.

Chris drops his bag on Nursey’s feet and Derek is brought back to the task at hand. Getting his other best friend undressed and in a bed as soon as humanly possible. He throws his bag around his body and lets it hang behind him awkwardly so he can carry Chowder’s bag in one arm and support Chowder with the other.

“You were great tonight, Chris,” Nursey says as Chowder leans on him in the elevator up to their rooms.

Chow kind of mumbles into Nursey’s shoulder, his lips catching on his t-shirt before he pulls away.

“What bud?”

“You’ve said that,” Chowder says, amusement in his voice, “like, 4 times already.”

Nursey looks down and sees that bright smile aimed up at him, a little crinkled with tiredness.

“Well you were amazing! Can’t a bro tell his best friend he played great?”

Chowder shakes his head and starts walking out the elevator doors when they open, the bell chiming that they’ve arrived at their floor.

“Yeah man, I’m not complaining. Just don’t forget you have more than one best friend who kicked ass tonight,” Chris elaborates, turning back from putting the key into his hotel door to raise an eyebrow at Nursey pointedly.

Oh.

Whoops.

“I’ll tell him,” Nursey says firmly, “you need more help dude? I don’t want to find out you slept in your street clothes and shoes on top of the covers.”

But Chris shakes his head and makes grabby hands for his bag once he steps inside his hotel room doorway. Chowder gets his own room on roadies sometimes. Rans and Holster claim it’s goalie privilege passed down from Johnson but honestly, Chow snores like a trucker.

He bids Chris a good night after making sure he at least toed off his dress shoes and then he’s heading for his shared room with Dex. Who he _has_ kind of neglected, save one backslap on the way back into the locker room and a brief back and forth praising some of their finer moments on the ice.

He eases his way into the room as quietly as he can, depositing his bag of gear into the fake closet area next to the door. It’s dim in the room, the way hotel rooms tend to be, and Dex is already in bed, back to the door.

Shit.

Nursey sighs and drags himself to his other bag, grabs his face-wash and shower stuff to get cleaned up and ready for bed. It’s probably 20 minutes later that he’s crawling into his own bed and Dex hasn’t uttered a peep the entire time. He’s going to have to provide breakfast in bed – poppy seed muffin, bacon and an orange – to make up for whatever he did beyond devoting his attention to Chowder instead of Dex.

It’s quiet enough in the room that Nursey can hear the slow shallow breathing coming from the other bed that means Dex is either pointedly faking or is already asleep. So instead of asking what’s wrong, Nursey rolls over to hug the extra pillow and let his tired body rest. He’ll fix things in the morning.

A sharp gasp wakes Nursey from his uneasy sleep. He fumbles for his phone, reading the time before a choked-off sob comes from the bed next to him. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning but Nursey is wide awake as he rips the covers back and practically leaps across the space between the beds to get to Dex. He struggles to get the lamp on because it’s dark as shit in the room and once he can see his heart kind of, cracks a little.

Dex is all twisted up in the sheets, the comforter 80% on the floor. He’s got sweat beaded on his forehead and his t-shirt is damp when Nursey runs a hand along his back, trying to ease him out of whatever nightmare is playing in his head.

It doesn’t work.

Dex _whimpers_ and Nursey changes tactics, grabbing Will’s shoulder and shaking it roughly, and saying his name sharply.

Two more shakes and Dex’s eyes pop wide open, his strong hand reaching out and gripping at Nursey’s arm tightly, keeping him in place with a bruising grip. Not that Nursey cares.

“Dex, man, you okay?” Nursey whispers gently.

Will's shocked expression crumples as he shakes his head once sharply before bursting into tears. Nursey reaches out when Will pulls his hand back, turning over to bury his face in his pillow, but he lets his hands hover over Will, unsure if his touch is welcome in the moment.

“Will?” he asks urgently but Will shakes his head into the pillow before his hands are skirting across the bed searching for something, his phone. He’s ignoring Derek completely as his shaky hands fumble with his phone, another sob escaping him when he drops it. Derek reaches out and gently takes the phone, gaining eye contact again and his heart cracks further at the anguished expression on Will’s face.

“Who?” he asks quietly, pulling up the call log on Will’s phone, he sees his own name interspersed with a daily call from “Dad”. Oddly, the times on the calls are all the wee hours of the morning. Just like right now. Damn.

“My dad,” Dex croaks and Derek nods as he touches the screen to start the call. The phone rings twice before a deep voice answers, a groggy, “Will?” coming through the speakers.

“Mr. Poindexter, this is Nursey- I mean Derek Nurse, I uh, Dex needs you,” he rambles awkwardly.

“Put him on, kid,” he hears before passing the phone to Dex who takes it readily.

“Pa,” he sobs out quietly before breaking down into tears again at whatever his dad tells him.

Nursey feels completely useless, helpless to make things better. Dex doesn’t say anything save for a few miserable, ‘yes sir’s through the call, until after the last one he hands the phone back to Nursey. The call is still connected so he raises it to his ear again, “Sir?”

“Derek you said, right?” Mr. Poindexter asks.

“Yes, sir,” Nursey answers quickly.

“I don’t know how close you are with my son but…”

“Yes?” Nursey prompts after he trails off.

“He’s going to need someone close by after this,” Dex’s dad admits and Nursey is slightly relieved.

“So I can hug him?” he asks genuinely and Dex groans weakly but his dad chuckles over the phone.

“He’ll say he doesn’t need it but he does. Just tell him everyone is fine, we’re all alive. No one is missing. Can you do that for me, son?”

“Of course,” Derek assures him, then they’re saying goodbye.

Nursey drops the phone on the bed and flops down half on top of Dex, half on the bed next to him, getting his arms around his shoulders tightly. Dex shudders in his arms before turning to bury his face in Derek’s chest instead of the pillow.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and Derek’s heart is officially in pieces.

“Dex, don’t apologize, please man. Just what can I do?”

“You don’t have to do-“

“Will,” Nursey cuts off before he can spout some nonsense about Derek not needing to do anything.

“This,” Dex says, voice cracking on the word as his arms tighten around Nursey fractionally. “Just this.”

Nursey nods and rearranges them so they fit together a little more comfortably. Dex’s breath is still hitching in his chest and Nursey remembers after a few silent moments he’s supposed to be reassuring him. Something about everyone being alive? As much as he wants to know what the nightmare was about, and clearly it’s a recurring thing, he’d much rather get Dex to fall back asleep peacefully.

“Everybody is okay,” he says gently, albeit awkwardly. It comes out stilted in the beginning, but the more he repeats it, the smoother it feels. His hands are rubbing long, gentle sweeps up and down Dex’s back until his breath is even and the minute tremors have stopped.

“I promise, your dad said everyone is okay, Will. Whatever you dreamt about wasn’t real,” he tries to reassure and at long last Dex raises his head from the juncture of Nursey’s neck and shoulder to look at him, his pale face streaked with tears, his cheeks red.

“It’s a storm. I keep dreaming about a storm,” he says, voice rough and tight from the tears.

Nursey feels his eyes go wide that Dex is going to go into it. Derek doesn’t like talking about his nightmares. Not that he has many but he tends more towards burying them than speaking them aloud. But, everybody is different.

“You don’t have to-“ he starts and Will cuts him off just like Nursey had earlier.

“Nurse, just, I gotta do something different. Not talking about it isn’t helping,” Will says, eyes pleading for Derek to understand.

Nursey just nods and brings one of his hands up to run his fingers through Will’s hair gently, soothing him as he goes into his nightmare. About the storm on the boat, about his brother getting washed over the side, then his dad, then coming home to no one.

Derek has some idea where Will’s subconscious has the idea that his family could be taken from him. He didn’t survive having a psychologist for a mother for nothing. But he doesn’t think a dingy hotel room on a roadie is the time and place to talk about it.

So he just holds his crush tightly, offering as many reassurances as he can think of until he looks down and see's that Will is asleep. He tries to tell himself he’d do this for any of his friends, that it isn’t his huge embarrassing crush that has him tangled up in bed and comforting Will.

But then he thinks about doing this with Bitty, or Ransom and balks. It’s like a 404 Page Not Found Error flashes through his mind and he resigns himself to the truth.

He’d do anything for William Poindexter.

*

Nursey doesn’t know how soulmarks work in his family. Being adopted kind of threw genetic history knowledge out the proverbial window. He knows a lot of people have marks that grow and change and adapt as the person gets closer in their life to meeting their soulmate.

His showed up the day he joined the hockey team when he was 9 years old and had finally been adopted into a family, his moms wanting to prove he’d be around for a long time by making the commitment to the sport.

But when you’re 9 years old and suddenly have a mark predicting who your soulmate will be, you don’t really care. When he realized he liked boys as much as girls, it only expanded the pool of people that could be marked to spend their life with him. So before he even graduated high school, Nursey stopped actively thinking about his mark and who his soulmate would be.

By the time he started at Samwell it had been basically 10 years of having a mark that never changed.

The simple Taurus symbol on his side is now almost lost in a forest of other tattoos he’d gotten done on his body. He never put anything permanent too close to his mark, some small part of him still hoping it would change sometime in the future, that it would grow in some way. But he likes to put henna tattoos around it when he’s got the time in the off season. He’s had artists add everything from flower crowns to an entire bull skull on top of it.

*

When they lose in the playoffs, Nursey can’t hardly believe it. If he had the luxury of getting lost in his own head he’d be busy thinking about his mistakes and feeling guilty. But he only has eyes for the way Dex’s shoulders shake as they trudge back to the locker room. Can only hear the sharp sound of Will’s helmet smashing against the far wall after he throws it. He stays as close as he can to Will as they sit through the coaches telling them what they already know.

They played a clean game, they didn’t make any glaring mistakes, they did everything they were supposed to, but so did the other team.

Chowder looks seconds from tears, Jack is nowhere to be seen, Shitty is uncharacteristically subdued. It’s disappointing, it’s heart-breaking for some, but all Derek can think about is the way Dex had been smashed into the boards three separate times. The way he’d slowed down as the game went on, yet still taking longer lane shifts and his expression growing tighter and tighter.

He’s hurt.

Nursey is upset of course, no one likes to lose in the playoffs. But he’s not as devastated as some of his teammates seem to be. It’s his freshman year, he’s got three more chances to win a national championship. He’s sad for Zimms but he also knows that there is no way Jack isn’t going to the NHL. He’s going to have trophies and recognition far beyond a college championship. It’s in his eyes when he’s on the ice; Jack Zimmermann is not done playing hockey just because he’s graduating from Samwell.

But he knows that Dex is hurting, both physically and emotionally. If Nursey has learned one thing through this ridiculous crush it’s that William Poindexter feels responsible for everything. And right now, as much as Nursey wants to just be alone to process the game, the loss, he knows he’s going to need to stick close to Dex.

They’re not going home until the morning and Nursey is glad for it. He doesn’t think he could keep Dex confined to one place if they were back on campus. As it is they all somberly make their way back to the hotel and to their rooms. Nursey doesn’t even ask where Dex is hurt, or how bad it is. After they dump their bags, Dex starts stripping down as he grabs his pajamas and methodically gets ready for bed, taking his face wash, toothbrush and paste into the bathroom with him.

Nursey grabs the ice bucket and the clear plastic bag liner out to the ice machine down the hall. When he gets back into the room Dex is lying in bed, covers thrown back as he looks at his phone. He’s wearing a threadbare t-shirt that looks incredibly soft. It's rather distracting.

Nursey snags a washcloth from the bathroom before making his way to Will’s bed and sits down on it at Will’s hips. Will looks at him over his phone, eyebrow raised in silent question and Nursey keeps his gaze even and as non-judgmental as possible.

“Show me where you’re hurt,” he says gently, not leaving it a question but a statement.

Dex doesn’t fight though, which is a surprise as much as it’s a relief. He sighs as he drops his hands to his sides. His phone is left on the bed as he lifts his shirt up and Nursey can see the extent of the damage. He sucks in a sharp breath at the bruises on Will’s side, already red and purple and purple so dark it looks black.

“Anywhere else?” he asks quietly as he tries to put the ice on the bruise as gently as possible.

Dex gasps a little, eyes going wide and Nursey thinks it’s because of the ice so he uses his free hand to hold Dex’s opposite side, thumb rubbing comforting circles.

“Will?”

“M-My leg,” Dex admits quietly and Nursey thinks the hesitancy is probably because for Nursey to see it means Dex will be left in only his boxers. Nursey squeezes his side slightly to try and calm him down as he quirks a small smile.

“Dude, no need to be shy,” he chirps softly, but Dex’s eyes are still wide and his cheeks have gone pink.

“I just- I don’t think it’s that bad,” Dex tries as Nursey’s fingers find themselves at the waistband of Dex’s pajama pants.

He lifts his hands back, splayed out as he leans back, he wants to help here, not push boundaries.

“Dude, if it’s half as bad as your side it’s going to need some ice,” Nursey tries to reason back and Dex squirms for another moment before he huffs and nods.

“Fine, you get another bag and we’ll split the ice in half,” Dex instructs reluctantly.

Nursey nods and goes to search for another plastic bag. By the time he turns back around Dex is indeed stripped down to his boxers and Nursey has to have a very quick, very stern word with himself to calm the hell down and not ogle his hurting friend.

But there’s just so much _skin_ on display and he’s drawn to it like a bee to flowers. He stumbles a little coming around the foot of his bed as he makes his way back to Dex’s side. Dex is staring at the ceiling and Nursey doesn’t know why he’s so embar-

Oh.

Oh _shit_.

Dex’s mark is on his thigh. Dex’s _soulmark_ is on. his. thigh. It’s stark against the pale skin and Nursey kind of forgets about the bruise he was supposed to be applying ice to. It’s right there below the mark, big and purple and splotchy but Nursey doesn’t see it. His breath kind of stops when he makes out the Aquarius constellation clearly there on Dex’s skin.

Each star is a bold black dot connected by dashed lines to make the constellation clear. It’s- it doesn’t mean anything. Just because his birthday- it doesn’t mean. He’s not that lucky that-

“So, uh, that’s my soulmark,” Dex says to break the silence and Nursey’s stumbling thoughts.

Nursey snaps his eyes to look up at Will’s face.

“Dude,” he enthuses as Will continues to just stare at the ceiling instead of at Nursey. “You could have just told me where to put the ice I didn’t mean- you didn’t have to show me that.”

Will hasn’t really been this naked in the locker room even and now Nursey knows why. He’s such an idiot.

“Nurse,” Dex says fondly, finally looking at him with a hesitant smile on his lips, “I trust you man. I’m sure I’ve seen yours you just have so many other tats I don’t know which is which.”

Which, that’s kind of exactly why Nursey started getting tattoos as soon as his moms allowed him to. Locker rooms got less invasive when people didn’t know if it was a mark or a tattoo.

Nursey finds himself dropping the plastic bag and lifting his shirt off.

“It’s here,” he admits, pointing to where the dark, clear mark shows on his skin since the henna ink has long since been fading away around it. Dex’s curious expression quickly slips into shock and…hope? His eyes dart between the mark Nursey is showing him and Nursey’s face. Nursey watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down when he swallows thickly.

“Nursey, uh, do you know when my birthday is?”

“No, unless you had it and didn’t tell us,” Nursey says, confused at the open expression on Will’s face.

“Well, it’s uh, it’s May 7th,” Dex says and offers no further explanation.

Not that Nursey needs one. When he was 15 he went on a research binge about astrological signs. He knows that Taurus is the sign for people born between April 20th and May 20th. And since he also knows that as a Valentine’s day baby he’s an Aquarius…

“Holy shit,” he breathes out quietly and his legs are starting to feel a little wobbly.

“Derek-“ Dex says, voice concerned as he pushes himself up with one hand and reaches out towards Derek with the other and oh wow he’s falling over.

He lands on the floor with a thud, falling right on his ass and of course he’d make it through a playoff hockey game without a scratch only to bruise his tailbone finding out who his soulmate is.

“Are you- do you think?” he asks, and if he could form a whole thought in his head he’d ask a whole question out loud. As it is, he’s sure Will is smart enough to fill in the blanks.

Dex still has that hopeful look on his face and he’s still reaching out for Nursey.

“We can try and find out,” he offers, voice wavering with nerves and anticipation no doubt. Nursey just nods and scrambles back to his feet, then crawls onto the other side of the bed.

He licks his lips, his mouth suddenly dry as he asks, “How?”

Dex’s cheeks are turning pink again but he seems to steel himself before answering.

“My parents, they knew when they touched each other’s marks. They changed I guess when they did it. So like, at the same time?”

Nursey nods along again eagerly as he maneuvers himself so he has a knee on either side of Dex’s right leg, his left hand bracing himself up over Dex’s chest as his right hovers over Dex’s thigh. Dex has one hand on Derek’s side, big and warm just gently keeping him balanced in place while his other hovers over Derek’s mark.

Nursey licks his lips again and looks down at Will’s bright eyes, knowing if nothing happens he’s going to be heartbroken to not have this beautiful boy as his soulmate.

“On three?” he offers and Will nods.

They count it out together, on three gently placing their hands over the other’s marks and Nursey feels tears start to rise as his side starts twitching and itching the longer Will’s hand holds him in place. By the time he pries his eyes open again and looks down at Will, he looks just as wrecked as Derek feels. A tear escapes and rolls down into the pillow even as Will is huffing a weak laugh.

“Of course,” he says and Derek is thrown back to his birthday, the way Dex had spent the day saying those two words over and over again.

“Oh,” he breathes out, “You knew?”

“I hoped,” Will admits and Derek leans down, presses his forehead to Will’s and closes his eyes.

“Me too,” he admits and Derek can feel and hear Will smile before he tilts his head up to kiss Derek’s cheek.

“You missed,” Derek says with a grin and leans down to kiss Will on the lips.

Only for Dex to turn his face away so Derek winds up kissing his ear.

“Dude,” he says through a laugh because what the hell. But Dex is giving Nursey a bitch face worthy of Jack Zimmermann himself. It kind of kills the high of finding your soulmate when they don’t even want to kiss you.

“Excuse me for wanting our first kiss to be something I can feel past the throbbing in my ribs,” Dex grits out, and reality comes rushing back at Nursey.

“Shit, Dex,” he says as he scrambles to roll off him.

When did he press himself against all that bruised skin anyway?

He rolls, not thinking about much beyond getting _off_ but Dex grabs his shirt to tug him the opposite direction.

“Derek,” he grunts when Nursey falling onto the bed jostles it roughly. “Can just one of – us need – medical attention – at a time?” he asks through labored breaths and Nursey feels like shit.

“I’ll do my best to not smash my head into the nightstand or hurt myself until you’re completely healed,” Nursey rushes to say, hands hovering as he wavers on what he can do to help. It takes a moment for the last part of Will’s comment to sink in.

“Medical attention? It’s hurting that badly?” he asks quickly and Dex nods as he lays his head further back into the pillow and closes his eyes.

“Yeah,” he croaks and Nursey is up off the bed then, throwing a hoodie on and sliding his feet into his shoes as fast as he can.

“Gonna help me get dressed, dear?” Dex says as he struggles to even sit up.

“Yeah, sure,” Nursey answers sincerely.

Dex slowly swings his legs over the side of the bed and Nursey quickly rummages through Will’s bag for real pants, socks and a button down. He turns back to see Will gripping the edge of the bed tightly, keeping himself upright at what appears to be great cost to his ribs. Nursey doesn’t hesitate to step back over to the bed and toss the pants and socks next to Dex.

“Thank God you like flannel,” he enthuses and Will smiles tightly as Nursey carefully gets the shirt on and buttoned up. He kneels down to put Will’s socks on and marvels that he could find even his feet adorable. There’s matching freckles on the top of each foot. It’s ridiculous.

Soon enough he’s helping pull on Will’s sweats, then his shoes and they’re making their way down the hall to the coaches’ room. Dex has to lean pretty heavily on Nursey as they walk but Nurse doesn’t mind - it’s a good weight to bear.

Nursey uses his free hand to knock on the coaches’ room door. It whips open a moment later to reveal their coaches already in pajama pants of their own.

“What’s wrong boys?” Hall asks right of the bat.

“Mr. Stubborn here has a broken rib,” Nursey says and even he can hear the fondness in his voice.

“Or two,” Dex grits out, the arm not around Nursey’s shoulders holding his chest protectively.

Hall just shakes his head at them.

“I’ll call us a cab.”

In the end, it’s one broken rib with two others fractured. It’s a long night in the ER and an even longer early morning as Katie comes to pick them up and drive them home. After running up to their room to get their bags, Nursey doesn’t have the energy to do much more than dump their stuff in the front seat before climbing in the back with Will. He leans against the door and pulls Dex towards him so he’s reclining across the backseat with the least amount of pressure on his ribs.

Of course, Dex is dead to the world, thanks to some kickass painkillers, not 5 minutes into the drive. Katie is awesome enough to just wink at Derek in the rearview, turn down the radio and then Nursey is asleep soon after.

Only he’s the worst at sleeping in cars so he wakes up when Katie slows down after a while. He tries not to jerk awake like he normally does, even in his tired stupor he remembers Dex needs a cushion not a jolt to the ribs. Still he yawns and shifts around, making enough noise that Katie looks back at him in the rearview again.

“Sorry,” she says quietly, and Nursey looks out and around. They’re off the interstate, still at a light on the off ramp.

“We’re not back yet,” she continues, “I just desperately needed a coffee.”

Nursey huffs gently, trying not to shift his chest too much.

“Get me one,” he requests upon seeing that beautiful green Starbucks sign.

“Coffee or a frou-frou drink?” she asks with a smirk as they pull into the drive-through lane of the only recently opened coffeehouse.

“A guy orders a hazelnut Frappuccino _one time_ ,” Nursey grumbles as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, thumbing into the app, “I’ll have a grande Americano, please,” he says clearly as Katie laughs gently and rolls down her window.

A tired sounding barista comes over the speaker and Katie orders their drinks then pulls forward. Nursey reaches out to pass her his phone.

“Take it,” he says when she just looks at him in confusion, “You saved me from what was potentially the most miserable bus ride back to Samwell of the year.”

She gives him a sad smile and a nod as she takes it. Soon enough they’re sipping piping hot drinks and are pulling back onto the interstate. While not striking up a conversation with Katie, Derek eases himself into wakefulness.  He’s going to need to be awake and ready to help get Will set up in his dorm room for the next few days of recovery.

*

It’s been four days. Four days since they lost in the playoffs, four days since he busted a rib and four days since Dex found out his soulmate not only exists but is none other than Derek M. Nurse. See the sucky thing about broken bones is that he spends at least two days afterward in a pain-killer induced haze while awake and the other 80% of his time is spent asleep.

So by the time he’s awake for more than an hour at a time, it’s the school week again and everyone, Nursey included, had to get back to class and life in general.

So between the painkillers, class, and the general clinginess of their team, Dex and Nursey have not had a moment alone together in four damn days.

Instead of being comfortably ensconced in his crappy dorm room bed to wallow by himself, Bitty had given him his bed. Dex isn’t 100% sure where Bitty has been sleeping but he thinks it’s been on Jack’s floor.

50% of him feels guilty for kicking Bitty out of his own room. But the other 50% is so, _so_ happy to have been sleeping on a real mattress for the past few days and nights while the pain has still been so intense. Plus, Bitty managed to scrounge up about a dozen extra pillows to prop him up so he is currently attempting to push himself up out of the fluff to get to the bathroom.

It’s been four days of this nonsense and he is already sick of it. He knows he needs to just take it easy but he hates it. He hates not being in complete control of his body, it just feels wrong and it grates at him constantly.

And to complicate matters more, the longer he goes without seeing Nursey and talking to him alone and in person the worse he feels. It started with an ache in his chest that spread up his shoulder and into his head giving him a splitting headache on top of everything else.

And really, Dex is sick of it.

If Nursey doesn’t get his ass to the Haus tonight after his night class Dex is going to drag himself across the campus to Nursey’s dorm and- and-

He doesn’t know what he’d do, mostly because he’s pretty sure he’d make it a hundred steps from the bed before Bitty caught him and guided him back.

He had settled for sending a terse text message to Nursey instead and then began his battle against the pillows so he wouldn't make a mess of Bitty’s floor.

Relief washes over him in more ways than one when a strong hand grips his elbow and helps him stand up straight.

Then irritation replaces the relief when he sees just who is helping him.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demands and Nursey has the self-preservation to at least look apologetic.

“Miss me, Dexy?” he says though and if Dex could take a breath deep enough to fuel a rant he would he really would but instead he glares and Nursey winces.

“Yeah I know. In my defense,” he says as he starts walking Dex out of the bedroom towards the bathroom down the hall, “if I hadn’t stayed away from you I probably would have failed two classes. Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to separate myself from you long enough to get my papers done, and they were worth 40% of my grade in both classes.”

It’s a fair explanation. Dex knew about the papers going in to the playoff game and how Nursey hadn’t been able to focus on them with the pressure of the game on his shoulders. Still, Dex doesn’t want to cave that easy so he settles for another glare before he shuts himself in the bathroom to relieve himself.

Nursey is leaning against the doorway when Dex opens the door again a few minutes later and his expression is pretty forlorn.

“You’re making it up to me,” he grumbles as he accepts the gentle arm around his waist guiding him back down the hall and towards the bed again.

“I can do that,” Nursey says, smile evident in his voice.  

“I want pizza,” Dex says as he focuses on shuffling carefully down the hall.

“Pizza it is then,” Nursey says agreeably.

“And I want a milkshake,” he adds but Nursey just nods.

“S’mores or banana split?”

Dex doesn’t answer as he eases himself back into the pillows.

“S’mores,” he says as Nursey starts texting someone. “And you’re helping Bitty make me blueberry cobbler.”

“Fine, yes,” Nursey huffs with a tolerant smile and then eases himself onto the bed, so gentle and deliberate that Dex almost forgets how clumsy Nursey is on a day to day basis. They end up pressed together, Nursey between Dex and the wall on his side with his arm carefully across Dex’s chest.

“I missed you,” Dex grumbles and Nursey presses a kiss to Will’s shoulder.

“I missed you too, boo,” Nursey responds, his chin propped up on Dex’s arm and giving Dex a goofy grin.

“Are you high?” Dex asks suddenly and Nursey frowns.

“No? Why would you think that?”

“You’re all,” Dex pauses to wave a hand around to encompass Nursey’s…everything.

“You just gestured to all of me,” Nursey says deadpan, sounding slightly annoyed and Dex rolls his eyes.

“You’re just very mellow, alright? I’ve been laying here in pain from the game and from not seeing you and now you burst in here all happy and-“

“Relieved?” Nursey interrupts, arching an eyebrow at Dex, “Because the headache I’ve had since Sunday morning finally receded when I saw your surly face?”

Oh.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Nursey says, smiling once again and Dex is glad he didn’t ruin the mood. One of them being crabby is one person too many. And Dex isn’t completely ready to give up his foul mood.

It’s what got him through the last few days.

“So it’s going to be a while before the pizza gets here,” Nursey says like he’s leading up to something, “should we talk about us?” he asks gently and Dex leans his head back into the pillow and suppresses a sigh.

“Yeah probably,” he says but he’s not sure where to start.

“I’ll start,” Nursey says though and Dex is all too glad to have Nursey get the ball rolling. It was his idea anyway.

“My mom’s both have soulmarks, but, mom’s is a platonic bond with Uncle Jeremy and that’s how she met Mama B,” Nursey starts explaining and Dex nods along. “Mama B’s soulmate died of cancer when they were sixteen but fell in love with mom when she started hanging around Jeremy. And Uncle J was all too happy to set up his platonic-best friend with his little sister. They got married, got settled in their jobs and then voila, they adopted me.”

Dex knew about half of that. Mom and Mama B had made one memorable visit to Samwell when they brought Nursey back from Christmas break.

Mom Mira is a small slip of a woman, petite and dainty in appearance only. Her sharp eyes, quick wit, and loud voice made it clear how she’d found such success as a lawyer. And Mama B, short for Bárbara, not because she dislikes the name but because she couldn’t bear to hear people butcher the Spanish pronunciation or call her – horror of horrors, _Barb_ – was tall, not as tall as Dex but still, she towered over Mira by at least a foot. Yet despite her height, gave off such an open, trustworthy demeanor that Dex had found himself wanting to tell her everything.

He didn’t even know about _what_ he’d just wanted to talk to her and that’s well, that’s not something he’s used to. Dex tends to keep everything pretty bottled up, it just works out better for him that way. But 5 minutes with Mama B and that’s all it took to understand her profession in psychology.

Both woman had been giddy to be back on a college campus and Nursey had happily, if slightly embarrassedly, walked them around the entirety of Samwell because of it.

He knew they didn’t bear matching soulmarks but he didn’t know about why until now.

“And my birth parents weren’t soulmates either,” Nursey continues, “That, at least was included in the minimal information in my adoption paperwork. I got their nationalities, Native American and Dominican, ages, 20 and 19, and that they were giving me up because they were not, in fact, soulmates and were not staying together despite having a baby.”

He says it so matter-of-factly, like he’s talking about someone else, not his own history. And Dex kind of aches at how nonchalant he is about all of it. Because he’s 100% sure that this is not something Nursey is actually chill about.

“So not only do I not have a good example of a soulmate relationship in my life but I probably have some lingering abandonment issues to boot,” Nursey says and Dex wishes he could roll over and smush Derek between himself and the mattress. Make him _feel_ that Dex is never going to let him go. He only realizes it’s been a beat of silence too long when Nursey picks his head up off the pillow to look down at him.

He clears his throat, trying to get rid of the lump there.

“Sorry, I, I was thinking,” he says and brings his hand up behind Nursey’s head to run his fingers over the curls at the nape of his neck. “Um, my family, my whole family is one long line of soulmates meeting early in life, having big Catholic weddings and then making babies. I will _not_ be the first boy to bring home a boy so, um, no worries about the staunch Irish Catholic parents being homophobic.”

Nursey relaxes back into the bed but is still listening intently to Will speak.

“Mom met Dad when he came in to buy books at the bookstore she worked at in our town. He’d only stopped to get a book for my Aunt Patti but he kept going back again and again until they finally got their act together and talked about their marks.”

Dex shrugs gingerly, both not to aggravate his ribs or to jostle Nursey.

“I’m a middle child so, you know, always have to prove myself. But um, Johana liked to tell me I’m clingy and intense so…knowing how I tend to jump in both feet first and figure things out as I go along…I’d be willing to bet we’re not going to have any trouble. I’m going to be more than happy to remind you I’m not going anywhere if those abandonment issues ever raise their heads.”

Nursey doesn’t say anything but he does shift closer to Dex, pressing another quick kiss to his shoulder and then laying his head on it.

“I think…I think we should keep things slow. We finish out the semester together and maybe this summer we split time between Manhattan and Maine? I think as we go along things will fall into place? I um, I know how I feel but we need to be on the same page.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Nursey says, he sounds hesitant and Dex rolls his eyes.

“I mean this is a multiple choice question, ‘what type of bond does your soulmark mean? a. platonic, b. romantic, c. sexual, d. all of the above,’” Dex asks, already knowing his answer.

Nursey snorts.

“You do have a way with words Poindexter,” he says before hesitating again but Dex doesn’t push. “I think, no. No, I _know_ my answer is ‘d. all of the above’. I want anything and everything I can get with you Dex, have for a while now.”

It’s Dex’s turn to lean down and kiss Nursey, pressing his lips to the crown of his head.

“Same, Derek. I want the same, anything and everything.”

Nursey lifts himself up and searches Dex’s face for something, a small smile curling his lips when he seems to find it. He leans in slow, bringing the hand not bracing himself against the bed up to hold Will’s face gently. Then they’re kissing and Dex’s mark is tingling again, and the sound Nursey makes into his mouth makes him think he’s experiencing the same.

The kiss is short but sweet and Dex is glad they don’t do more because he honestly won’t be able to follow up with anything else, his ribs still too tender for anything strenuous. Nursey pulls back and smiles wide, eyes crinkling at the edges and Will falls in love all over again.

“Did you ever see my mark that night in the hotel,” Nursey asks quietly and Dex shakes his head because he hadn’t, not after they’d changed. So Nurse pulls back to kneel on the bed next to Dex and pulls his shirt off. Dex gets a little distracted because, _arms_ and _pecs_ and _abs_ but then he sees the mark on Derek’s side, sees that the thick sign of the bull has been filled in with swirling lines with intricate detail filling them. They look like they’re moving but Dex knows that’s impossible.

“It’s the symbol for air, so it’s a piece of you and a piece of me together,” Nursey elaborates and that makes sense to Dex given what had been added to his constellation after that night. He starts to push his pants down but can’t do it without bending so Nursey takes over after a quick glance to make sure it’s okay.  

“Alchemical sign for earth, so like you said, a piece of each of us,” Dex says as Nursey thumbs over the mark on Dex’s thigh.

“I like that,” Nursey says, staring intently at the mark for another moment before righting Will’s pants again and laying down.

“I like that we will walk around with a little piece of each other,” he continues and a pleasant warmth spreads throughout Dex. He’s possessive, so what.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Me too, babe.”

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> Please come to [my Tumblr](www.acountrygirlsfun.tumblr.com/) and ask me about the marks the rest of the team have. 
> 
> To see their soulmarks check out [this post](https://acountrygirlsfun.tumblr.com/post/157503481668/anything-and-everything-nursey-dex-wills/) on Tumblr.
> 
> To see the amazing art of Dex with his nose ring check out [this post](https://acountrygirlsfun.tumblr.com/post/157503270868/im-writing-this-dexnursey-fic-and-in-it-dex-had/) on Tumblr. 
> 
> Let me know if you liked this story <3 Comments and Kudos are love!


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